A Graphical Monitoring and Notification Flow Language (MNFL) for User-Configurable In-Home Assistive Monitoring

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A Graphical Monitoring and Notification Flow
Language (MNFL) for User-Configurable In-Home
Assistive Monitoring

• Alex Edgcomb
• Oral Qualification
• March 2nd, 2011

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The Goal User-configurable notification systems
for in-home use
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Not enough configurability
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Too much configurability
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Outside too long at night
Grandma has Alzheimers
Not safe to be outside at night
Want to be notified if she is for long
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Defining the system

• Send a text message if someone leaves, without
• returning, for more than 10 minutes at night.

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Microsoft VPL
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Microsoft VPL

• If-statements with gt1 variable require Join
• Join operator only takes two values at a time
• Join waits for both variables to receive data
• Asynchronous data sources leads to raise
  condition.
• If-statements require all variables using in
  If-statement and Calculations done afterward.
• Hard (if not impossible) to increment on a
  raising/falling edge

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Lego Mindstorms v2.0

• Lacks global variables.
• Variables cannot be read/written more than once.
• No sense of actual time.

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Scratch

• New functionality leads to
• Redundant code
• Complex code
• Reason Independent behavior is not separated
  away.
• For example, add a 2nd door
• Create second code block
• Embed new timer/variable

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RIBS and RIMS
inWindow (time gt 10PM time lt 5AM) var
Time 10minWait time Period length 1 second
1) Define synch SM in RIBS. 2) Automatically
convert to C code in RIMS.
CS120B (Introduction to Embedded Systems)
students take 5 weeks to correctly describe
exact behavior.
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MNFL
System Pros Cons
Microsoft VPL Flow language style is intuitive for streaming applications If-statements do not handle asynchronous data
Lego Mindstorm Easy to learn for people of age 10 Variables too restrictive
Scratch Graphical cues indicate purpose/usage of blocks Temporal programming does not handle new functionality well
RIBS and RIMS Precise behavioral description Challenging to learn
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MNFL Data Types
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MNFL Modifiers of Data Types
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MNFL Core blocks
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Video demo
YouTube version of video http//www.youtube.com/u
ser/eslucrp/u/9/xpaOkhYBXT8
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In bathroom for over 1 hour
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Got up 5 or more times at night
Got up was motion, then no motion for 10
minutes
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Take 1 pill in the morning
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KPN Execution semantics

• Kahn processing networks (KPN)
• Processes communicate through channels
• When all input channels have a token, the process
  executes and outputs tokens

Kahn, G. The Semantics of a Simple Language for
Parallel Programming. Information Processing
1974. North-Holland Publishing Company, 1974.
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SDF Execution semantics

• Synchronous data flow
• Process KPN process
• Channel KPN channel
• Difference
• Processes read and write a constant number of
  tokens.

Lee, Edward A. and David G. Messerschmitt.
Synchronous Data Flow. Proceedings of the
IEEE, vol. 75, no. 9, p 1235-1245, September,
1987.
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MNFL Execution semantics

• Monitoring and notification network language
  (MNFL)
• Block KPN process
• Connection KPN channel
• Difference
• Blocks execute when any input channel has a
  token

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MNFL block SM

• Inside each block is a state machine.
• Q queue of inputs I current input
• P previous input O output

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Implementation figures(as of 02/27/11)

• 8,000 total lines of ActionScript
• 700 lines for discrete event simulation engine
• 400 lines for base block class
• 80 related to graphical appearance and behavior
• 50 600 lines for each block
• Largest two blocks
• Send message - high configurability
• Fall extractor - detecting falls from silhouettes
• 26 fully implemented blocks
• Block spawn, deletion and connection creation
  take less than 1 ms on a single core 3.0GHz PC.

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Conclusions and Future work

• EasyNotify
• Easy to use compared to currently available
  systems
• Core blocks contain in-home functionality
• MNFL
• Data types tailored to in-home monitoring sensors
• Non-restrictive block communication
• Human subject trials to improve usability
• Develop mechanism for users to build and
  integrate new blocks
• Move computations to cloud